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3fce351
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The war went from bad to worse and the Government was universally detested. As each fresh catastrophe came to the public's notice some small share of blame might attach itself to this or that person, but in general everyone united in blaming the Ministers, and they, poor things, had no one to blame but each other - which they did more and more frequently.
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Susanna Clarke |
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4fd7694
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Mr Hawkins said nothing; the Hawkins' domestic affairs were arranged upon the principle that Fanny supplied the talk and he the silence.
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marriage
language
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Susanna Clarke |
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80ca005
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Magic (in the practical sense) was much fallen off. It had low connexions.
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Susanna Clarke |
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4b3f6de
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I have been most industriously talking up your extraordinary powers to all my wide acquaintance,' continued Mr Drawlight. 'I have been your John the Baptist, sir, preparing the way for you!
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Susanna Clarke |
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cf64c89
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In short they felt that they should like to have the pleasure of looking at Lady Pole again, and so they told Sir Walter - rather than asked him - that he missed his wife. He replied that he did not. But this was not allowed to be possible; it was well known that newly married gentlemen were never happy apart from their wives; the briefest of absences could depress a new husband's spirits and interfere with his digestion.
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Susanna Clarke |
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afcf071
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Ha!" cried Dr John contemptuously. "Magic! That is chiefly used for killing Frenchmen, is it not?"
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magic
great-britain
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Susanna Clarke |
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a28a0e1
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They had no relish for gossiping about their acquaintance and even politics seemed a little dull. In short they felt that they should like to have the pleasure of looking at Lady Pole again, and so they told Sir Walter - rather than asked him - that he missed his wife. He replied that he did not. But this was not allowed to be possible; it was well known that newly married gentlemen were never happy apart from their wives; the briefest of a..
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Susanna Clarke |
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6ad4fb5
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Nothing was more characteristic of Sir Walter Pole than Surprize. His eyes grew large, his eyebrows rose half an inch upon his face and he leant suddenly backwards and altogether he resembled nothing so much as a figure in the engravings of Mr Rowlandson or Mr Gillray. In public life Surprize served Sir Walter very well. "But, surely," he cried, "You cannot mean to say --!" And, always supposing that the gentleman who was so foolish as to s..
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Susanna Clarke |
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851c611
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Poor gentleman," said Mr Segundus. "Perhaps it is the age. It is not an age for magic or scholarship, is it sir? Tradesmen prosper, sailors, politicians, but not magicians. Our time is past."
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Susanna Clarke |
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9d6bdd8
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There was a tall, sensible man in the room called Thorpe, a gentleman with very little magical learning, but a degree of common sense rare in a magician.
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Susanna Clarke |
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1929c31
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He muttered something of Mr. Norrell's honest countenance. The York society did not think this very satisfactory (and had they actually been privileged to see Mr. Norrell's countenance they might have thought it even less so).
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Susanna Clarke |
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8b8522c
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But a soldier ought not to dwell too long on such matters. His life is full of hardship and he must take his pleasure where he can. Though he may take time to reflect upon the cruelties that he sees, place him among his comrades and it is almost impossible for his spirits not to rise. Strange
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Susanna Clarke |
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a1c4036
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As to what they might be resting upon, Stephen was determined not to consider).
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Susanna Clarke |
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bc48838
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All these details took but a moment to apprehend yet the impression made upon Mr. Segundus by the two ladies was unusually vivid --almost supernaturally so-- like images in a delirium. A queer shock thrilled through his whole being his senses were overwhelmed and he fainted away.
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Susanna Clarke |
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df1dba2
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A gentleman in Mr Norell's position with a fine house and a large estate will always be of interest to his neighbors and, unless those neighbors are very stupid, they will always contrive to know a little of what he does.
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Susanna Clarke |
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7d845e9
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She lived quite alone and whether the fault was hers or whether the fault was theirs I do not know. And a great deal of time went by and she did not speak to a living soul and a great wind of madness howled through her and overturned all her languages. And she forgot Italian, forgot English, forgot Latin, forgot Basque, forgot Welsh, forgot every thing in the world except Cat - and that, it is said, she spoke marvellously well.
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Susanna Clarke |
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bba6362
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It is, after all, many centuries since clergymen distinguished themselves on the field of war, and lawyers never have.
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Susanna Clarke |
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966424d
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hatching his poems..
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Susanna Clarke |
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1fb721f
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It is impossible to say how many dinners Drawlight was invited to sit down to that day - and it is fortunate that he was never at any time much of an eater or he might have done some lasting damage to his digestion.
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Susanna Clarke |
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9c89f2c
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And are you married, sir?" Mrs Winstanley asked Tom. "Oh no, madam!" said Tom. "Yes," David reminded him. "You are, you know." Tom made a motion with his hand to suggest that it was a situation susceptible to different interpretations. The truth was that he had a Christian wife. At fifteen she had had a wicked little face, almond-shaped eyes and a most capricious nature. Tom had constantly compared her to a kitten. In her twenties she had b..
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married-life
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Susanna Clarke |
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67c82b0
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The King's Ministers had long treasured a plan to send the enemies of Britain bad dreams. The Foreign Secretary had first proposed it in January 1808 and for over a year Mr Norrell had industriously sent the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte a bad dream each night, as a result of which nothing had happened.
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Susanna Clarke |
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ea78298
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Mr Norrell assured Mr Strange that he would find war very disagreeable. "One is often wet and cold upon a battlefield. You will like it a great deal less than you suppose."
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Susanna Clarke |
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6ba499b
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Suddenly it seemed that all that had been learnt in every English childhood of the wildness of English magic might still be true, and even now on some long-forgotten paths, behind the sky, on the other side of the rain, John Uskglass might be riding still, with his company of men and fairies. Most
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Susanna Clarke |
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0373a1d
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You must get me a house, Childermass," he said. "Get me a house that says to those that visit it that magic is a respectable profession - no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine."
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Susanna Clarke |
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c2b5fb7
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a book of magic should be written by a practising magician, rather than a theoretical magician or a historian of magic.
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Susanna Clarke |
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a8efabe
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There is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure. It is, after all, what everyone does all the time.
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Susanna Clarke |
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348c01f
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when the fairy sang, the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy's song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.
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Susanna Clarke |
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42076a8
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The Duke of York remarked that King Ferdinand of Spain had sent a letter to the Prince Regent complaining that many parts of his kingdom had been rendered entirely unrecognizable by the English magician and demanding that Mr Strange return and restore the country to its original form.
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Susanna Clarke |
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682ce3f
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Many people nowadays have surnames that reveal their ancestors' fairy origins. Otherlander and Fairchild are two.
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Susanna Clarke |
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7ede623
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But as to how the food is conveyed to her," exclaimed Miss Greysteel, "no one knows for certain. Signor Tosetti believes that her cats carry it up to her." "Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!" "Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfe..
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Susanna Clarke |
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a49779c
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No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week.
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Susanna Clarke |
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ae1a7c9
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Clegg began life as a tightrope walker at the northern fairs, but as tightrope-walking is not a trade that combines well with drinking - and Clegg was a famous drinker - he was obliged to give it up.
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Susanna Clarke |
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5210825
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The man under the hedge, sir. He is a magician. Did you never hear that if you wake a magician before his time, you risk bringing his dreams out of his head into the world?
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Susanna Clarke |
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6e13d9e
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I was always amazed at Cambridge how quickly people appeared to take offence at everything I said, but now I see plainly that it was not my words they hated - it was this fairy face. The dark alchemy of this face turns all my gentle human emotions into fierce fairy vices. Inside I am all despair, but this face shows only fairy scorn. My remorse becomes fairy fury and my pensiveness is turned to fairy cunning.
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otherness
fairy
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Susanna Clarke |
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d672106
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For always and for always I pray remember me Upon the moors, beneath the stars With the King's wild company.
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magic
raven-king
spell
faeries
raven
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Susanna Clarke |
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33afbd3
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Country gentlemen who read in their newspapers the speeches of this or that Minister would mutter to themselves that he was certainly a clever fellow. But the country gentlemen were not made comfortable by this thought. The country gentlemen had a strong suspicion that cleverness was somehow unBritish. That sort of restless, unpredictable brilliance belonged most of all to Britain's arch-enemy, the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte; the country g..
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Susanna Clarke |
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8002258
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Richard Chaston (1620-95). Chaston wrote that men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies it is the other way round: magic comes very naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane. 3
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Susanna Clarke |
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41d1b7e
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Houses, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own
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mad
eccentric
lonely-people
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Susanna Clarke |
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51bc391
|
Their religion is of the strictest sort, Stephen. Almost everything is forbidden to them except carpets." Stephen watched them as they went mournfully about the market, these men whose mouths were perpetually closed lest they spoke some forbidden word, whose eyes were perpetually averted from forbidden sights, whose hands refrained at every moment from some forbidden act. It seemed to him that they did little more than half-exist. They migh..
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Susanna Clarke |
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c52079f
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a cold, miserable little hamlet on the eastern coast of America called Piper's Grave.
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Susanna Clarke |
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0ddb8bc
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room was crowded with officers bringing reports or collecting orders, or simply gathering gossip. At one end of the room was a very venerable, ornate and crumbling
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Susanna Clarke |
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e388b3e
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But the sound that came out of his mouth was no sound at all; it was the emptied skin of sound without flesh or bones.
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Susanna Clarke |
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720be37
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The little man was all smiling acquiescence.
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Susanna Clarke |
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6dd4954
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Country gentlemen who read in their newspapers the speeches of this or that Minister would mutter to themselves that he was certainly a clever fellow. But the country gentlemen were not made comfortable by this thought. The country gentlemen had a strong suspicion that cleverness was somehow unBritish.
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Susanna Clarke |